APD steps up distracted driving enforcement efforts

Amarillo Police Officer Trent Thomas uses his radar at the intersection of South Ross Street and Southeast Third Avenue. APD has added distracted driving to the list of traffic safety issues it will address with federal aid.

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The Amarillo Police Department has added distracted driving, especially using handheld cell phones, to the list of traffic safety issues it will address with $161,000 in federal funding to pay officers overtime.

Amarillo City councilors voted July 15 to take the money from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration through the Texas Department of Transportation and match it with $201,000. The city has participated in the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program for years trying to cut back on intoxicated driving, speeding, people not wearing seat belts or using car seats and now distracted driving.

“It is one of the factors the state has allowed as part of the grant app before, but this is the first time we’ve done it,” APD Sgt. Brent Barbee said. “This was done due to the awareness of distracted driving as a risk factor and the city’s cell phone ordinance.”

Statistics in the grant application show 76 distracted driving citations from October 2012 to September 2013. And the goal cited in the documents is to increase that by 500.

It is unclear how much this might help change the behavior of drivers. Speeding statistics show despite 12,020 citations for speed in the city during the same time period, there are at least 22 street segments where compliance with speed limits ranges from about 13 percent to about 28 percent. The worst is from 1100 S. Buchanan St. to 1100 N. Buchanan St., where less than 1 percent of drivers obey the limit.

Those compliance rates count one mph over the limit as not complying, said Tracy Tellman, traffic safety specialist for the Amarillo District of TxDOT.

“Everybody speeds all the time, it seems to me,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s improved over the years with so many pressures and people trying to multitask.”

Goals in the grant application say the department wants to increase speeding citations by 5,250 over a year beginning Oct. 1. However, There is also a note that state law prohibits using traffic-offense quotas.

Progress with “occupant restraint,” or seat belts and child-safety seats, is another goal. There were 1,286 seat belt citations and 409 safety seat citations during the survey period, meaning 85.6 percent compliance with the law. APD hopes that by adding 450 seat belt citations and 80 for safety seats, the department can bring compliance up to 91 percent.

That would be closer to the state average.

“Click it or Ticket launched in 2002,” said Bev Kellner, program manager for the passenger safety project at Texas A&M AgriLife, referring to the campaign promoting seat belt use. “At that time, 76.1 percent of drivers used (seat belts). Now it’s over 90 percent. Enforcement will definitely help with all these traffic safety issues. If somebody’s issued a ticket for a safety violation, that person is very much less likely to do that again.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, since Click it or Ticket began, it has contributed to almost 3,700 fewer traffic deaths and more than 50,000 serious injuries in the state.

Much of the enforcement in Amarillo is done by the APD Motorcycle Squad.

“Generally, the officers that work overtime are anyone that can work it,” Barbee said. “Motors, obviously, are good candidates as they are the most time efficient tool for traffic enforcement.”

The focus of enforcement is determined by an annual traffic survey of collision rates at intersections provided by the city’s Traffic Engineering Department.

“The fleet manager lieutenant uses that study and the (police department’s) accident statistics to determine where selective enforcement can be used to reduce accident rates,” Barbee said. “That information is provided to the Motorcycle Squad due to their primary role in the department’s enforcement efforts, but the study also goes to the shift commanders for use in directing traffic enforcement.”

While there are no other cities in the Texas Panhandle using these grants this year, 53 jurisdictions in Texas are spending a total of $9.9 million from the program in this fiscal year, said Mark Cross, TxDOT spokesman in Austin.

“We issue a Request for Proposal to generate enforcement participants. Each proposal is scored and ranked. Using the score, rank, and funding-match ability, agencies are selected to participate in the grant program,” he said.

In the big picture, there are a mix of goals, including “to increase effective traffic enforcement, increase compliance of traffic safety-related laws and reduce fatal and serious-injury crashes,” Cross said.